Niki Rudolph

Mother Nature

In a month-long blogging challenge with #reverbbroads11. Today’s prompt: Life is a work of art, or so they say. What beauty do you regularly appreciate/revere in your life? (from Neha)

I am regularly caught off guard by the beauty of the natural world around me. Oddly, I feel most in touch with humanity when I am out in the middle of nowhere. Being in the midst of woods or flowers or lakes or snow makes me feel closest to our Creator and connected with others.

Living in the Great Lake State, I have spent much most of my life not more than an hours from a lake – often a really big one. There is something so calming about hearing the water lap up on the shore and hearing a loon call from the middle of the lake late in the evening. We have enjoyed many evenings here in Michigan and also in the Adirondacks of New York in the midst of such beauty.

But if I had to pick the most beautiful season, it would be fall, hands down. There are about two weeks in the peak of fall where my breath is taken away daily by my neighborhood mature trees painted orange, red, and yellow. I have stopped my car on several occasions to snag a picture of the colors, especially since I know it will only last a brief time.

But being a Michigan girl, I do love winter. In the Upper Peninsula, we spent many cold months with several feet of snow and the brightest, bluest skies imaginable. The world looks fresh and clean during that time. I currently live in the most gray part of Michigan, but I had a chance to a glimpse of the brilliant blue-sky winter morning a few weeks back after a dump of about 6 inches of snow (chump change to a Yooper).